Was A.W. Tozer wrong on sovereignty? Today's question arrives from a listener named Josh. Pastor John, hello. I'm a Christian of only a few years and I'm learning more about Calvinism and election in my studies. My question is, to what degree are our actions in daily walk with God predestined?

If I recall correctly, A.W. Tozer believed Providence was like a cruise ship. The ship's final destination is settled and certain. That's Providence. But on the open water, what we each do on the ship is open to our own free volition. So Pastor John, how much of our daily life is sovereignly directed by God?

Well, I love A.W. Tozer, but that's a bad analogy. Yes, it really is. Sorry, A.W. The last question, how much of our daily life is sovereignly directed by God? My answer is all of it, down to the tying of your shoelaces and the brushing of your teeth, which I'll try to show from the Bible in just a minute.

There are several problems with this proposal that says life is like a cruise ship whose destination is sovereignly decreed while the life on the ship is not sovereignly decreed. And here's the first problem. It implies that the choices we make in life on the ship don't have any decisive effect on the outcome of our lives, the destination of the ship.

That's not true. Hebrews 12.14 says, "Strive on the ship for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord," that is, arrive at the destination. No holiness on the ship, no destination in heaven. So disconnecting sovereignty over the destination from sovereignty on the ship is unbiblical. Here's another way to say it, or same point, different angle, why this is an unbiblical proposal.

The Bible is pervaded by teachings that God's sovereign control is complete, not partial. It governs every aspect of nature, every aspect of history, national, personal, life. Nothing, absolutely nothing is outside God's sovereign governance. Now the way he controls all things, whether it's more or less direct or more or less indirect, more or less by active intrusion or more or less by tactical permissions, however God controls, the control is complete and pervasive.

Nothing in the universe is random or without divine design and purpose. Now I don't say this because of any philosophical assumption about the nature of God. I think philosophical assumptions here are the nemesis of true biblical thinking. We should come to the Bible and try to listen to it for what it says without bringing our philosophical assumptions to it.

So I'm not saying this because of an assumption about, "Well, that's just the way God has to be. That's what God means," or, "That's what human will does or doesn't require," or, "That's what causality is," or what—I'm just not even thinking that way. I'm trying to just come to terms with text.

So let me give you the texts that are governing me here, or at least give them to Josh so that he can ponder them. Proverbs 16.1, "The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue"—that is, what really happens—"is from the Lord." Proverbs 16.9, "The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord"—what really happens—"the Lord establishes his steps." Or Proverbs 19.21, "Many are the plans of the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand." That's what's happening on the ship, right?

That's not just the end of the ship, cruise. Proverbs 20.24, "A man's steps are from the Lord." How can he understand his way? Or Proverbs 21.1, "The king's heart is a stream of water." This would be one of the crew members on the ship. The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord.

He turns it wherever he wills. Now all those texts refer to ordinary, on-the-boat decision-making. So if what Josh means by our decisions being "open"—that's what he said—"open to free volition," if what he means is that we have ultimate self-determination on the ship, well, the answer is we don't. There is no human ultimate self-determination.

Only God has ultimate self-determination. We are free in the sense that we can do whatever we choose, but ultimately God governs what we choose. We are not God, and we cannot veto God. That's what Job had to learn in 42 chapters of warfare with God when he concludes in Job 42, "I know that you can do all things, and no purpose of yours can be thwarted." So no purpose of God's can be vetoed by a purpose of man.

What we think is random in this world or uncontrolled, the Bible says, is from the Lord. So it says things like Proverbs 16:33, "The lot is cast in the lap," or we would say, "The dice are rolled on the board." But every decision is from the Lord. So that's choosing a random thing and saying, "No, it's really not random from God's perspective." And Jesus, if you're bothered by all those texts coming from the Old Testament, which you shouldn't be, but if you are, here's Jesus' way of saying the same thing.

Jesus says in Matthew 10, "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny, and not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father?" Now, I think the reason he chose two sparrows and one of them just dropping dead off a branch in the jungle somewhere is that that just seems to be the least significant thing in the world.

Like a bird dying in a forest somewhere that only God knows about, that's really random and insignificant. And Jesus says, "Well, you may think it's random and it may be insignificant, but it is controlled by your father." So even the hairs of your head are all numbered, he adds, and then he makes the wonderful application, "Fear not.

Fear not. You are of more value than many sparrows." Well, there's a "therefore." Fear not therefore. In other words, the sovereignty of God over the details of the universe and our lives is meant to take away fear. The control of God, our Father, our good, loving Father who works everything together for His glorious purposes and our good should make us bold as a lion.

I would say James, the book of James in the New Testament, is virtually thinking the same way that Josh is thinking, namely, we're on this boat and the question is, are the random, seemingly insignificant little things we choose on the boat governed by God? So James says, "Come now, you who say today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there and try to make a profit." Like, okay, you think you're going to go somewhere on this ship?

"Yet," he says, "you do not know what tomorrow may bring. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say," and here comes the answer to how detailed God's governance of the behavior on the ship is, "Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live," that is, we won't die on the cruise, "and we will do this or that," that is, we'll go to the top level of the ship or the bottom level of the ship or we'll stand in the sun today or we'll eat at six or five today, whatever, "we'll do this or that if the Lord wills.

As it is, you boast in your arrogance." So it seems to me that James is saying there is meticulous, complete sovereignty over our living, over our doing this or that, and the purpose of it is not only what Jesus said, namely courage, but humility. It's arrogant not to think this way about our cruise behavior.

One last observation. If you think that you can be faith-filled, obedient, holy on this cruise ship without the sovereign enabling of God, then you don't know your own sinfulness and you don't know the preciousness of the work of the Holy Spirit on the ship. There's only one hope of pleasing God on this cruise ship, and that is the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit.

It's just baffling to me. In fact, it makes me mad when Christian teachers try to take the sovereignty of God away from the nitty-gritty battle for holiness, which is everything in our Christian life. So here's the key text for me. Hebrews 13, 20, 21, "Now may the God of peace equip you with everything good that you may do His will," here it comes, "working in us that which is pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.

Indeed, indeed, amen. To Him be glory, not just for getting us to the destination by sovereign decrees, but also for enabling us to do everything good that we have to do on this ship. The ship is the place where we live, where the glory of God will shine or not shine, and to take the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit by which we are enabled to do what pleases God away from this ship is crazy.

First Corinthians 15, 10, "But by the grace of God, I am what I am on this ship, and His grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked on this cruise ship harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that was with me." So the destination on the ship and all of our life on the ship are governed by the one who, Ephesians 1, 11, works all things on the ship and in our destination, all things according to the counsel of His merciful will.

Amen. Sovereignty in the nitty-gritty details of our lives. I love what you said, Pastor John. The sovereignty of God over the details of the universe and our lives is meant to take away fear. Amen. That's really good. Thank you, Pastor John. Well, Jesus is my substitute. That's one of the great and glorious truths of him.

He became sin for me that I might stand before God righteous and forgiven. It's beautifully true. But is Jesus also my joy substitute too, my hope for when I fail to delight in God as I ought? It's another really sharp question from a listener thinking through Christian hedonism in their daily life, and we will address it on Monday.

On the other side of the weekend, until then, I'm your host Tony Reinke. We'll see you then. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9